Funeral

I should really blog right after events, when they are fresh in my head. Still, writing a few days later means I recall the moments that were most significant to me.

Last Wednesday was the "viewing." Only family were there. It wasn't enjoyable, but it wasn't too painful. In the last ten years or so, many of my cousins have started having children. The effect of that is that family gatherings are logistically difficult. My dad has five sisters, all of whom have multiple children with children of their own. My point is that I hadn't seen some of these relatives for years. One of my cousins and I tried to figure out how long it had been since we had seen each other and we couldn't figure it out. So I had to explain what I've been up to many times. Also, I had to hide the fact that I was recently separated. Finally, I disliked wearing the mens dress clothes, which were a great difference from my usual shorts and a t-shirt. (I didn't wear a tie, just a short-sleeved button up shirt.

The next day I missed the family only burial in the morning due to an exam. But I made the funeral in the afternoon. (this time I wore that new dress shirt, albeit sans tie) I had to read a song (presented in the bulletin as a reading, I wouldn't have tried to sing some unfamiliar song) that had been found on a paper in my grandpa's bible. That was the biggest crowd I had spoken in front of, the biggest before had been a class at university. (there were probably a few hundred people there) I wasn't nervous, since I wasn't familiar with what I was reading.

However, there were two hymns sung in the memorial service. Now, I've pretty much stopped singing since I've stopped going to church. But I decided I ought to sing along to these two songs, because you don't need to believe what you are singing, plus I always used to like singing hymns. Singing hymns reminds me of the late eighties, early nineties, when we went to a particular church that had a lot of hymns, which my late grandfather also attended at the time. Anyways, I literally couldn't make it more than a stanza or two of "How Great Thou Art" without starting to cry. Perhaps I miss religious belief, but of course that isn't an acceptable reason to redevelop it. I think crying during those two songs was just my way of being sad.